1. Who is in charge of TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced?

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the U.S. Department
of Education, is responsible for conducting TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced in the United States and for representing the United States in international collaboration
on these assessments.

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)
coordinates TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced internationally. The IEA is an independent
international cooperative of national research institutions and government agencies
with nearly 70 member countries worldwide. The IEA has a permanent secretariat based
in Amsterdam, and a data processing and research center in Hamburg, known as the
IEA Data Processing Center (DPC).

The IEA contracts with the TIMSS
& PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College to lead the
design and implementation of TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced. The TIMSS & PIRLS International
Study Center works with country representatives, called National Research Coordinators,
to design and implement these assessments, assure quality control and international
comparability, and report results. The U.S. National Research Coordinator is Stephen Provasnik of NCES.
Data collection for TIMSS 2015 and TIMSS Advanced 2015 within the United States
is done under contract with WESTAT, Inc.

2. Can my school sign up to participate in these assessments?

Schools cannot sign up to participate in these assessments as part of the national
U.S. sample. It is important for fair comparisons across education systems that
each country only includes in its national sample those schools and students that
are scientifically sampled by the international contractor to fairly represent the
country. Moreover, given the design of TIMSS, no individual school scores can be
calculated.

3. How are representative samples of students selected?

TIMSS requires participating education systems to draw probability samples of students
who were nearing the end of their fourth or eighth year of formal schooling, counting
from the first year of primary schooling. For TIMSS 2015 in the United States, one
sample was drawn to represent the nation at grade 4 and another at grade 8. The
U.S. national sample included both public and private schools, randomly selected
and weighted to be representative of the nation at grade 4 and at grade 8. Specifically,
the study, utilized a two-stage stratified cluster sampling design. The first stage
made use of a systematic probability-proportionate-to-size (PPS) technique to select
schools. The second stage of sampling consisted of selecting classrooms within sampled
schools. At the classroom level, TIMSS samples intact mathematics classes that are
available to students in the target grades. For TIMSS 2015, two classrooms were
selected per school in the United States, where feasible. In U.S. schools containing
only one class, this class was selected.

TIMSS Advanced requires participating education systems to draw probability samples
of students in their final year of secondary schools who were taking or had taken
courses in advanced mathematics or who were taking or have taken courses in physics.
For TIMSS Advanced 2015, in the United States, two samples of twelfth-graders were
drawn to represent the nation—one for advanced mathematics and one for physics.
The U.S. national samples included both public and private schools, randomly selected
and weighted to be representative of the nation's advanced mathematics and physics
students at the end of high school. Specifically, the study, utilized a two-stage
stratified cluster sampling design. The first stage made use of a systematic probability-proportionate-to-size
(PPS) technique to select schools. The second stage of sampling consisted of selecting
students rather than classrooms within sampled schools.

4. How many U.S. schools and students participated in previous TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced
cycles?

At grade 4

Assessment year

Number of participating
schools

Number of participating
students

Overall weighted response
rate (percent)

1995

182

7,296

80

2003

248

9,829

78

2007

257

7,896

84

2011

369

12,569

80

2015

250

10,029

81

At grade 8

Assessment year

Number of participating
schools

Number of participating
students

Overall weighted response
rate (percent)

1995

183

7,087

78

1999

221

9,072

85

2003

232

8,912

73

2007

239

7,377

77

2011

501

10,477

81

2015

246

10,221

78

At grade 12

Assessment year

Number of participating
schools

Number of participating
students

Overall weighted response
rate (percent)

1995

Advanced mathematics

199

2,349

67

Physics

203

2,678

68

2015

Advanced mathematics

241

2,954

66

Physics

165

2,932

58

NOTE: The overall weighted response rate is the product of the school participation
rate, after replacement, and the student participation rate, after replacement.
There was no grade 4 assessment in 1999.

5. What countries have participated and have there been changes in the countries participating
in these assessments?

There have been changes in the participation of education systems across TIMSS cycles.
To conveniently compare these differences, the NCES TIMSS website provides a table
of all TIMSS participating countries and sub-national education systems for each
of the TIMSS years of administration. Please follow this link to view the table.

For a table of all participating countries and non-national education systems for
each of the TIMSS Advanced years of administration, please follow this link.

6. If the makeup of the countries changes across the years, how can one compare countries
to an international average?

Due to the fact that the makeup of the participating countries changes in every
administration, TIMSS uses the TIMSS scale centerpoint instead of the international
average for consistent comparisons over time.

The TIMSS achievement scales were established in TIMSS 1995 based on the achievement
distribution across all participating countries, treating each country equally.
At each grade level, the scale centerpoint of 500 was set to correspond to the 1995
mean of the overall achievement distribution, and 100 points on the scale was set
to correspond to the standard deviation. Achievement data from subsequent TIMSS
assessment cycles were linked to these scales so that increases or decreases in
average achievement may be monitored across assessments. TIMSS uses the scale centerpoint
as a point of reference that remains constant from assessment to assessment.

8. How do the results of TIMSS compare with the results in PISA?

The results from TIMSS and PISA are difficult to compare because the assessments
are so different in at least three key ways that could influence results. First,
TIMSS assesses 8th- and 4th-graders, while PISA is an assessment of 15-year-old
students, regardless of grade level. (In the United States, PISA data collection
occurs in the autumn, when most 15-year-olds are in 10th grade.) So, the grade levels
of students in PISA and TIMSS differ. Second, the knowledge and skills measured
in the two assessments differ. TIMSS is intended to measure how well students have
learned the mathematics and science curricula in participating countries, whereas
PISA is focused on application of knowledge to "real-world" situations. Third, the
participating countries in the two assessments differ. Both assessments cover much
of the world, but they do not overlap neatly. Both assessments include key economic
competitors and partners, but the overall makeups of the countries participating
in the two assessments differ markedly. Thus, the "averages" used by the two assessments
are in no way comparable, and the "rankings" often reported in media coverage of
these two assessments are based on completely different sets of countries.

9. How do the results of TIMSS Advanced compare with the results in PISA?

The results from TIMSS Advanced and PISA are difficult to compare because the assessments
are different in ways similar to the differences between TIMSS and PISA. First,
TIMSS Advanced and PISA assess two different student populations. TIMSS Advanced
assesses students in their final year of secondary school (Grade 12 in the U.S.)
who were taking or had taken courses in advanced mathematics or physics. PISA is
an assessment of 15-year-old students, regardless of grade level. (In the United
States, PISA data collection occurs in the autumn, when most 15-year-olds are in
10th grade.). Second, the knowledge and skills measured in the two assessments also
differ. TIMSS Advanced is intended to measure how well students have learned the
advanced mathematics and physics curricula in participating countries, whereas PISA
is focused on application of knowledge to "real-world" situations. Third,
the participating countries in the two assessments differ markedly. TIMSS Advanced
covers less than a dozen countries while PISA include about 70 education systems.

NCES is planning to publish a paper about how the TIMSS Advanced assessment differs
from PISA as well as NAEP. The paper will be posted here as soon as it becomes available.

10 How does the mathematics and science achievement of U.S. students on TIMSS compare
with achievement on NAEP?

Both TIMSS and NAEP provide a measure of fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics and
science learning. Please see the tables below for a summary of the achievement score
changes between the two assessments over the last 20 years.

11. How do the TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced assessments differ from other international
assessments and NAEP?

The FAQs on how TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced compare to PISA and NAEP specifically provide
a brief explanation of the differences between the assessments. To learn more about
how the TIMSS assessment has differed in the past from PISA and NAEP, see the following
papers:

The scaling of TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced data is conducted
separately for each grade and each content domain. While the scales were created
to each have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100, the subject matter and
the level of difficulty of items necessarily differ between the assessments at both
grades. Therefore, direct comparisons of scores across grades should not be made
within any given year.

13. On TIMSS in 2015, why do U.S. boys outperform girls in mathematics at grade 4 but
not at grade 8, yet U.S. boys outperform girls in science at both grade levels?
Why aren't differences between the sexes more consistent?

The seeming inconsistencies between the 2015 achievement scores of U.S. boys and
girls in mathematics and science are not easily explainable. Research into differences
in achievement by sex has been unable to offer any definitive explanation for these
differences. For example, in examining sex differences primarily at the high school
level Xie and Shauman (2003)1 found that "differences in mathematics
and science achievement cannot be explained by the individual and familial influences
that we examine." Indeed, that sex differences vary in the participating TIMSS countries
some in favor of males and others in favor of females would appear to support the
idea that the factors related to sex differences in mathematics and science achievement
are complicated.

14. When are TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced data collected?

TIMSS operates on a 4-year cycle, with 1995 being the first
year it was administered. Countries in the Northern Hemisphere conduct the assessment
between April and June of the assessment year, while countries in the Southern Hemisphere
conduct the assessment in October and November of the assessment year. In both hemispheres
the assessment is conducted near the end of the school year.

TIMSS Advanced data was collected in 1995, 2008, and 2015. The United States did
not participate in the 2008 administration of TIMSS Advanced, therefore the administration
in 2015 was the first time TIMSS Advanced data were collected for the United States
since 1995. There is no regular periodicity for the administration of TIMSS Advanced.

15. Where can I get a copy of the TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced U.S. Report?

The most recent U.S. TIMSS report, Highlights From TIMSS and
TIMSS Advanced 2015: Mathematics and Science Achievement of U.S. Students in Grades
4 and 8 and in Advanced Courses at the End of High School in an International Context,
can be downloaded from the NCES website. Other U.S. reports for previous administrations
of TIMSS can also be downloaded (see Reports under Publications & Products in
the TIMSS section of the NCES website): http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/getpubcats.asp?sid=073.

16. When are the assessments scheduled to be administered next?

17. Can my state or school district sign up to obtain its own TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced
results, independent of the U.S. results?

Yes, states and large enough school districts can sign up to obtain their own TIMSS
and TIMSS Advanced results at their own cost. Sample size restrictions apply. However,
as is the case with the national sample, no school-level results are possible for
these assessments because TIMSS is not designed to produce school-level estimates.
Please contact Stephen Provasnik,
the U.S. TIMSS National Research Coordinator, for more information.

18. Where do the test questions and background questions come from that are used in
TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced?

The TIMSS mathematics and science assessment items are created based on the TIMSS Assessment
Frameworks, and are developed through an international consensus-building
process involving input from experts in education, mathematics, science, and measurement.
The development of the TIMSS items and scoring guides are the result of a widespread
and intensive process of collaboration, piloting, and review among the participating
countries.

TIMSS also administers background questionnaires to students, their teachers, and
their school principals to better understand the contextual factors that affect
students' learning. In 2015, for the first time, the fourth-grade TIMSS assessment
included a home questionnaire for students' parents and caregivers that collected
information about students' home backgrounds and early learning experiences. The
United States did not participate in the TIMSS 2015 home questionnaire. TIMSS also
administers curriculum questionnaires to specialists to collect information about
educational policies and the national contexts that shape the content and implementation
of the mathematics and science curricula across countries.

Although the majority of the assessment items, passages, and questionnaires are
carried forward from the previous assessment cycle to measure trends, the task of
updating the instruments for each new cycle—every four years for TIMSS since
1995—is a substantial undertaking. The Science and Mathematics Item Review
Committee (SMIRC), comprised of internationally recognized mathematics and science
experts, reviews and recommends updates to the Mathematics and Science Frameworks
for each TIMSS administration. The SMIRC also reviews the TIMSS 2015 items at key
points in the development process.

19. Were there any significant changes in the gender scores for math and science achievement
in TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced?

For both mathematics and science, and for both grades 4 and 8, the gender gap remained
statistically significant, with the exception of eighth-grade mathematics, which
showed no measurable difference between male scores and female scores.

In TIMSS Advanced, males achieved higher scores than females in both advanced mathematics
and physics.

20. How does TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced take into account the differing mathematics and
science curriculum standards that can occur within an individual country, as well
as mathematics and science curriculum differences on an international level?

The central goal of TIMSS and TIMSS Advanced is to provide information for improving
educational outcomes from both an individual education system and international
perspective. Each of the TIMSS assessments also collect considerable amounts of
descriptive data about the contexts for teaching and learning in participating countries
from student, school, and teacher background questionnaires. Countries provide information
about their educational systems and curricula in mathematics, science, and reading
by completing a country-level curriculum questionnaire and writing a descriptive
chapter based on a common outline created as part of the development process. This
information is compiled in the TIMSS Encyclopedia, which describes the major aspects
of teaching and learning in mathematics and science in each participant country.
A significant portion of the development and review effort by National Research
Coordinators is dedicated to ensuring that the passages, test items, and questionnaires
can be translated accurately, and the assessment items can reasonably measure mathematics
and science literacy skills of their education system's fourth-, eighth-, and advanced
student sample populations. The TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center then
prepares an international version in English of all the assessment instruments for
TIMSS. Subsequently the test and questionnaire instruments are translated by participating
countries into their languages of instruction with the goal of creating high quality
translations that are appropriately adapted for the national context and at the
same time are internationally comparable.

21. How does TIMSS align with the Common Core State Standards in mathematics in the
United States?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were developed for grades K-12 in the United
States to provide students with a common educational foundation across states and
education systems. Currently the CCSS only provides standards for mathematics, which
is one of the subjects assessed in TIMSS.

2015 assessment comparisons for TIMSS with the Common Core State Standards in mathematics
are currently still in production and will be published on the NCES website as soon
as they are available.